During the enforced darkness that enveloped London during the Second World War, the photographer Bill Brandt used the opportunity to take stunning photographs of the deserted, moonlit cityscape. The fictional documentary Blackout (Channel 4) imagined what the reaction of modern Britons would be if the electricity supply failed. We were not shown any artistically inclined people taking advantage of the lack of light pollution: instead the programme-makers imagined us descending into feral insanity with rioters stealing electrical items they can’t use and government officials making promises they can’t keep. The victims of the outage recorded their reactions using camera-phones with apparently everlasting battery.

Under a cyber attack from an unspecified group, the entire National Grid went down and Britain waved goodbye to the 100,000 megawatts of electricity it produces every day. Homes were plunged into darkness, unpurified water poured from taps and hospitals were run on creaky generators. Sweary thieves siphoned petrol from cars and even tankers destined for the emergency services. A tagged paedophile was let loose – with no power there’s no way of tracking his movements – and picked up a woman and child in his car. Much of Blackout felt like the opening five minutes of Casualty: you know something terrible is about to happen but you’re not quite sure what.

A number of recent chaotic national events shadowed this programme. The fuel protests of 2000 that led to panic buying and clashes at petrol stations; the 2005 terrorist attacks; post-Crash anti-capitalist demonstrations and the riots of 2011. Footage from these events was spliced with the drama – including David Cameron sounding pious about personal responsibility during the riots. His rhetoric was shown to be empty and the system’s response feeble.

The programme’s lack of confidence in the government’s ability to cope with disaster was arguably the only realistic speculation; I wonder whether its cynicism about how we would respond as individuals is justified. Are social bonds and human sympathy so lacking nowadays that we couldn’t cope with a few days of distress? Would the whole of society break down so quickly?

Though mildly thought-provoking, Blackout was let down by its unrelentingly histrionic style: shaking cameras, lots of shouting and moody music. Combined with its bleak subject matter this made for depressing TV.